It was traumatising to watch a Kenyan child yell in pain at school after being attacked with tear gas by the police.
In the good old days, a Kenyan student’s first encounter with tear gas was at the university level.
At
that point, a student is a young adult, can make the choice of joining a
demonstration and understands the consequences of being part of that
demonstration. They can also swiftly scamper for safety.
The
yell of that child is a terrible sign of the direction Kenya is taking.
Only the most inhuman regimes even in world history, such as the Nazis,
Apartheid and the Taliban, blatantly abuse children.
Most
dictatorial regimes are very good to children, and for a good reason.
They are the future, and a country has no future if it does not have
children or protect children.
Amazingly,
Kenyans, as always, would like to lay the blame on the victims. Why did
the headmaster and teachers allow children to bring down a wall? What
kind of parent allows their children to go to school on the day that a
demonstration is planned?
One has to be a critical
thinker who engages their deeper consciousness to be able to disengage
from simplistic, corrupt thinking that seems to be taking a hold on the
nation.
The real questions are, how does a private
developer build a wall around a school, a police station, or any other
pubic amenity for that matter, in a country that supposedly follows the
rule of law?
What on earth is a headmaster supposed to
do with 600-plus children during break, when the space left for them to
play and engage with each other is, for all practical purposes, a
matchbox?
If parents keep out of the affair of a
grabbed school playground, where will they turn to when the so-called
private developers – who are in reality private grabbers – decide to put
up a wall around the classrooms next?
ATTACKING CHILDREN IN SCHOOL
Yes,
we created a monster of a Constitution that has many useless public
offices, in addition to ministries whose work is to help the rest of us
mourn the problems in this country.
The National Land
Commission’s best defence to the problem is that they ran an
advertisement in the paper asking schools to secure their land.
Great
job, Dr Swazuri, we might as well put an advert in the paper asking the
patients admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital to secure it from
grabbers lest they face the consequences of a grabbed hospital.
Dr
Swazuri, sir, the headmaster’s work is to organise the school and
teach; he is a transient part of the education system in this country.
He does not own the school.
The Ministry of Education,
or the county, or some institution created by our Constitution in
perpetuity should own and secure that land.
Attacking
children in a school is also an affront on the education system. Someone
has found that Kenyan children are so worthless they do not deserve to
have a playground. So it has been hived off for the construction of a
mall.
Some hare-brain is trying to tell us that
commerce and education cannot exist hand in hand, that one has to give
way to the other. One would think that Kenya, being a democracy, has
already learned her lesson from people like Malala Yousafzai of
Pakistan, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle for
education of the girl child and all children who are denied, or are at
risk of being denied, an education.
‘PRETENDING TO BE AMAZED’
In
her acceptance speech, she pleaded that the award was not for her only,
but for all forgotten children who want an education, for the voiceless
children who want change.
In my books, the children of
Langata Road Primary School and all children of any grabbed playground
are voiceless children yearning for change.
Malala was
shot in the head by the Taliban for defying their order that girls
should not get an education in the area of Pakistan where she lived.
In
her opinion, it was better to get educated and be killed for it, rather
than not get educated and get killed anyway. That is the choice we are
making as Kenyans when a private developer grabs a schoolyard and we
watch, pretending to be amazed.
They build a wall and
still we are silent. Someone takes the trouble to bring the issue to
public attention and we all bemoan the corruption in this country, while
sitting in our comfort zones, including the National Land Commission
and the Ministry of Lands.
So are we as Kenyans saying
that it will take a dead child or children to reverse the grabber’s
assault? More importantly, who exactly is claiming the land that the
school playground sits on?
Twitter: @muthonithangwa
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